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City’s big events draw sex traffickers

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Thursday March 6, 2014 5:00 AM

Columbus is fortunate to host a number of events with national and international followings.
These events draw thousands of participants who spend lots of money when they are here, filling our
hotels, restaurants and entertainment venues.

When they return home, they spread the good news about our beautiful, energetic, sports-filled,
art-conscious city to the world. But because we love our city, we must be aware that not all our
visitors are desirable. Big events also attract people engaged in sex trafficking.

Sex trafficking is recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision or obtaining of a person
for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the sex act is induced by force, fraud or
coercion, or in which the person forced to perform such an act is under the age of 18.

In plain words, criminals bring into our city young girls; they establish them in convenient
hotels and go about making the solicitation of their sexual services easy and convenient. We can
only guess how much money the perpetrators take out of our city.

These girls are induced by force to perform sex acts and are often so psychologically damaged
and full of fear that they are unable to take action against their captors. Ohio ranks fifth in the
nation as a convenient route for traffickers or as a destination for sex trafficking.

To end this horrendous abuse, the Human Trafficking Commission helped to pass House Bill 262,
also known as the Safe Harbor Law. This law focuses on human trafficking and will increase the
penalties for traffickers and improve care for victims. Our city needs everyone’s eyes and
observations.

In order to prosecute those who are preying upon our children, we urge people to report any
information they might have about human trafficking by calling 1-855-BCI-OHIO (224-6446). This will
allow agents to work with local law enforcement to arrest and prosecute traffickers.